Compassion & Choices is commemorating this week’s 24th anniversary of the 1990 Americans with Disabilities Act on Saturday, July 26,by releasing a video today saluting our volunteers living with disabilities. The video is available for viewing on Compassion & Choices’ website, http://bit.ly/CandCCelebratesADA, and Compassion & Choices’ YouTube channel: http://bit.ly/ADACelebration.

“Compassion & Choices shares the goal of Americans with Disabilities Act of increasing autonomy and expanding options for all people,” said Compassion & Choices President Barbara Coombs Lee, an attorney who was an ER and ICU nurse and physician assistant for 25 years. “We honor this historic law by saluting our Compassion & Choices volunteers living with disabilities. They are among our strongest advocates for autonomy and expanded choice at the end of life for all people.”

The video features interviews with two Compassion & Choices volunteers who support the end-of-life choice of death with dignity.

1) Dustin Hankinson who has Duchenne muscular dystrophy and lives in Missoula, Montana. He has worked tirelessly to preserve access to death with dignity in Montana, one of five states that allow mentally competent, terminally ill adults the choice to access aid in dying.

2) ALS patient Sara Myers, who lives in New York City and Kent, Connecticut. She has diligently advocated for passage of aid-in-dying legislation in the nutmeg state.

“I’ve always felt that one should have a choice at the end of their lives. That has not changed because I have an ALS diagnosis,” says Sara Myers in the video. “What’s more important for a dying person than to have control at the end of their life?”

“It should be a basic human right to choose how you leave this world,” says Dustin in the video. “Death with dignity is just a natural conclusion to a life with dignity. No one else can be us, so no one else can make that decision.”

The video concludes by inviting viewers to join Compassion & Choices in seeking increased autonomy and expanded options for all people at the end of life by calling our toll-free number, 800-247-7421 or by signing our petition at: http://bit.ly/1wSpNb9.